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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Dante’s Purgatorio: Terrace 6 – 7

Following my
summarizes of Ante-Purgatory, Terrace 1-2, Terrace 3 – 5, these are the two
final terraces of Purgatory where Dante is purged from his sins. It’s not the
end of Purgatorio, though, as after this Dante would still go through The
Earthly Paradise, the last step towards Paradise! Meanwhile, here are the sixth
and seventh terraces…

Terrace 6 –The Gluttonous

Another
letter P has been erased from Dante’s forehead by the Angel of Liberality.
Statius tells them that avarice is not his sin; it’s prodigality—his excessive and wasteful spending. Fortunately he
read Virgil’s Aeneid which brought
him more to Christianity, for his Thebaid
has a touch of Paganism.

Now the
three poets resume their journey together to sixth terrace. There they find a
tree heavy with fruits and fruity fragrance; the smell triggers the desires on
food and drink. It tantalizes the spirits who are punished with gluttony sin; while a voice retells
about Mary who thought about the host’ honour at the Cana marriage instead of
herself, and John the Baptist who merely eats honey and locust in the desert. The
spirits purge themselves from gluttony sin by using their mouths for singing and weeping.

Dante then
meets his friend ForeseDonati, now a skinny man with leprosy,
who is purging his sin of gluttony, thanks to his wife who prays for him. He
also criticizes the immodesty of Florence women and prophesies something bad
would happen to them. Forese also prophesies Dante’s befriending the beautiful
Genthucca.

After Forese
left them, the three poets reach a second-tree, which is grafted from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil, whose fruit Eve had eaten from. Some spirits
plead with it, but the tree abandons them. So the excessive desire of food and
drink is now replaced with that of knowledge, and the spirits are punished for
that. The Angel of Temperance now appears, showing the next path to Dante before
clearing one letter P’s from his forehead.

Meanwhile,
Dante still has an unanswered question: how come the spirit they have just left
was starving when food wasn’t necessary anymore. In it, he wants to know about
the nature of soul after death. Statius provides him the knowledge about human
embryology. When the ‘perfect blood’ of man and woman are mixed—the male’s
active, the female’s passive—it has power to invigorate life, creates the
embryo, and develops organs. The embryo possesses life (as in plants), and
sensation and feeling (as in animals). An Arabian physician and commentator on
Aristotle, Averroës, shared the same
theory; but Dante (through Statius) disagrees with him. He believes that as
soon as the brain is complete, God breaths rational spirit into it, which
finally becomes one unified soul that exists after death. After death the soul
leaves the body, keeping memory, intellect and will with it, unto the after
life. It forms a shadow in the air, which we call spirit.

Terrace 7 – The Lust

Reaching the
seventh terrace, where sinners of Lust
are purged. They are welcomed by a narrow path; from one side of it flames hurl
from the down cliff, while on the other the danger of falling. From the burning
flames, Dante hears the spirits walking through the flames while singing Matin
hymn, the opening of a prayer for protection against lustfulness. They also
mention the examples of chastity: Mary and Diana.

Couples
cannot embrace one another, they merely exchanges friendly kisses. Lustful is
one of Dante’s weaknesses when he fell in love with Beatrice. But after
Beatrice died, he transformed his courtly love into a more divine and spiritual
one; through Beatrice, Dante sees God.

An Angel
appears from within the flames and tells Dante not to step further unless he
has been bitten by the fire first. Virgil encourages the terrified Dante to
have faith and go through the flames that won’t hurt him; only the name of
Beatrice that really brings Dante encouragement to get through.

Out of the
flames, the three of them reaches an ascending way through a rock. They were
soon overcome with sleep; Dante—similizes himself as a goat, while his two
teachers are as his shepherds who are guiding him in his reflection of the
past. Then Dante has another dream….

A young
beautiful lady gathering flowers for a garland appears to be Leah (symbol of actions), while her
sister Rachel (symbol of
contemplation) appears as a reflection from a mirror. It tells Dante that in
trying to reach Heaven, contemplation is much better than action (compare with
Mary and Martha in Bible). When he wakes up from his dream, Virgil tells Dante
that it’s time for them to separate. Virgil has been safely guiding Dante into
the end of his passage through Purgatory, having gained understanding and love,
things that Virgil himself, as teacher, failed to reach. Now Dante is purged,
and his free-will will guide him directly towards the good.